Astronomers on Monday released the first batch of images taken by an enormous, skyward looking camera situated in the Chilean Andes, known as theDark Energy Camera (DECam), which was designed to solve one of the greatest cosmic mysteries: Why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

The first images aren’t expected address that question quite yet (that would be too easy), but the DECam’s larger mission should allow scientists to understand just how much dark energy makes up the universe, theorized to be about 73 to 75 percent. The answer would help explain why the expansion of the universe — everything moving away from everything else — is speeding up in defiance of gravity and Eistein’s Theory of General Relativity, which says it should be slowing down.